Pages

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Is this weather not supremely gorgeous? It's been in the 80s-90s here in my corner of the Land of Enchantment. I just love when the weather warms up, the trees are popping with leaves and blossoms, plants are green, grass is growing... it's just beautiful!

Only one of them has full roses which is the one in the backyard next to the patio. It smells heavenly.

Ninja has been obsessed with my container garden. I bought 4 strawberry plants awhile back, but they got hit with a cold snap (I forgot to bring them in) and produced only a handful of tiny (But delicious) berries.

There were a few still on the vine that were green, so I left them in hopes they would grow. Ninja ATE THEM! He ate all the under ripe and blossoms on the strawberry plants. I was devastated. I bought 2 new plants in hopes I can get a better crop. The other plants do have shoots coming up so I may have more strawberries in a month or two.

Today, Ninja bit the top off the jalapeno seedling I bought at Lowes yesterday. I had no idea our dog was part goat. Butthead. It still has a few small leaves and I'm hoping it'll still grow. I'm thinking of fencing off the side yard outside the kitchen back door and putting my containers out there. As you can see, I started seeds so I will have a lot more plants to worry about.

Why yes, that IS Ninja's big nose in the way. It almost looks photoshopped in! He really cannot leave them alone. Todd and I have to figure something out together in hopes to keep my plants going. See my sad little jalapeno plant? Next to it is a Roma tomato plant, then the 4 Ninja attacked strawberry plants, the two new strawberry plants and my seeds. I started my herbs and lettuces along with a few cucumber seeds. I didn't plant them right so who knows if they'll grow. I'm trying to stagger out my lettuces and herbs by a week or two, so we can constantly have fresh herbs and lettuces. I will be growing two types of cucumbers (regular and pickling), beefsteak tomatoes and Roma, carrots and green onions. There may be more, but I can't remember. lol. My neighbor poked her head over and commented that I've been busy. This year is a trial year. I think next year my garden will be better. My goal is to get the outside of the house in great condition by next year. We need to have some stucco repaired (pro will be needed) then we need to paint the house (which we can do ourselves) and I want to add trim around the windows and doors which we can do ourselves. I would also like to replace the front door with something that allows in more light.

For now, we are trying to get the grass to come back from death. Maybe at the end of summer we can dig up the side walkways that lead to the backyard and put down weed barrier and gravel.

Here are some silly shots of Ninja aka goat-dog:

And here is my sweet Samurai, Tamurai, Samurai-rai. Happy 2nd gotcha
day, Tam-Tam Man! You are 10 years old and here's to another 10 more
years with you, ya sweet potato pie!

Monday, April 9, 2012

Just grab your purse and slowly make your way to the car and celebrate TARGET EASTER CLEARANCE!!!

Seriously, is there a better day than celebrating a Target clearance event? Target is one of my favorite stores. I go there at least once a week to stalk the dollar section and clearance. I try to rarely buy anything at Target full price. I would be poor if I did! I will talk about the goodness of Target for free, but I want to get paid to talk about the goodness of Target. In Target gift cards. Please?

Now that we have our house, there isn't a ton of fun money. I kinda thought that when we moved in, all projects would get done quickly and effectively... and inexpensively. Obviously, that wasn't the case! I thought I'd get in here and repaint everything, build stuff and all be done in a month. I actually (don't laugh now!) thought that I would run out of projects for my blog within the first year. I HEAR YOUR LAUGHTER!

Of course, now I know how things work out. It's either pay the gas bill or buy a lawnmower. It's either build up the savings or paint the bathroom. Boring, grown up talk. It makes me sad. I remember walking through stores and say, "when I get my house, I'm gonna buy that!" Now I walk through stores and say, "I could buy that, but we really do need to replace that toilet..."

But even on the bad days of homeownership (like when I can't figure out how to turn off the sprinklers and both Todd and I get soaked), it's still nice to have my own house.

Back to the beginning of this entry. The fun money is guarded carefully, so we won't have super fun holiday decor until next year. The reason is I'm buying our holiday decor on clearance!

I got two wooden wreaths (yes, that's a St. Patty's wreath. It was all sad and dejected and 2 dollars. I had to get it!), two wooden bunnies, a bundt cake pan (always wanted one!), two banners, a bag of felted eggs, 2 packs of cupcake liners, 2 packs of mini cupcake liners and 4 hand towels. I can't remember the exact cost. I want to say 35? Everything was on 50% off clearance. You can chance fate by waiting until they go to 70% but our Target was all ready picked over. I didn't want to miss out! Candy was only 30% and there was a ton left. I'll wait on that.

I also picked up these tealight lanterns. I'm obsessed with them. I really am. I'm waiting for Target to put all their outdoor stuff on clearance (around August-September when they put out Halloween things), and buying up a ton of those little 2.00 solar lights. They fit into those little lanterns and at night you have a pretty display!

Currently the desk is waiting for the primer to fully cure (7 whole days!). I'm painting it a robin egg's blue and bought really fun knobs at Cost Plus World Market. I hope it turns out all right!

PS: I had to pay for a year of Photobucket Pro because Blogger refuses to post any pictures for me. Oh well, it's actually a lot faster than regular Photobucket, no ads and I can get unlimited bandwidth. Plus, I can store all my ginormous DSLR pictures on there.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Normally, if I make a promise, I keep it. I made a promise to the hubs when we bought our house. I promised him that I would not start a project and not finish.

I broke that promise into a thousand itty bitty pieces. The brick patio is not finished. The craft room is still in shambles. Whoopsie!

But he still humors me, and that's why I love him! I have two awesome finds to share with you.

First up is my new sewing desk. I went through a billion ideas. First I was going to make one. Then I was going to buy one new. Then I was going to buy one new and repaint it. Then... okay, you get the picture. We went to Animal Humane New Mexico run thrift shop, Re:Tail, and I found this gem for 20 bucks. If you're in the Albuquerque area, Re:Tail had its grand opening this past weekend in their new space. They are no longer next to the shelter but on Menaul past San Mateo. This thrills me because Savers is moving in across the street! So now Savers, Re:Tail and ThriftTown are all near each other! One stop thrifting is always nice!

I have to say, Re:Tail is an awesome thrift shop. Their prices are reasonable, the books are well organized and the staff is helpful. They offer delivery for a fee and they may help you load your car. Plus, you would be supporting a wonderful cause. We adopted our Ninja from AHNM and I'm currently an emergency foster for them.

ANYWAY, here's the dresser! It's super sturdy but covered in a very thin veneer. It's really just a paper type cover. I will be sanding it down, priming with Kilz primer and then painting it. I haven't decided on the paint color. I could go white but that would be boring. I'm thinking a light gray with some dark gray stenciling on the side. I can't wait to buy handles for it!

Now this is a story of thrifting karma or it's a thrift version of "if you love something let it go. If it comes back it's meant to be yours." I saw this bar cart/tv stand at Re:Tail months ago. It was 7 bucks. It had so much stuff on it and I didn't have time. I didn't buy it. I was kicking myself over it and never got past it. Fast forward to this past weekend. We were at Savers trying to find a desk and guess what I spotted? Yep, the same bar cart (okay, maybe not the same, but the same type). It was 10 bucks at Savers. Did I cry over the price increase? Nope! I rolled that sucker right up to the cash register! I'm unsure what I'll do with it. I just really wanted it. The cut outs are so cool!

I won't say I've been lazy about getting stuff done. I have been working in the mornings getting the munchkin ready for school, cleaning and reorganizing... things like that. I needed some fun storage for the craft room, so I picked up all these metal pots and buckets from Target's dollar section. I painted them with chalkboard paint. Something I've noticed: regular Scotch blue painter's tape is absolute crap. It doesn't seal at all. As you can see, there was leakage, but it's easy to scrape away with a paint scraper. No big deal. :) Oh, and those light fixtures will also be going into the craft room. The white parts need another coat or two with some sanding in between... if I could just find my sandpaper...

I'm also assisting the boss lady in planning a really special birthday party for my favorite munchkin. Expect to see some princessy goodness coming up. I hope everyone is doing well! I have to get some pictures of the strawberry plants I bought. One has a fatty berry coming up. I'm so excited! I haven't started my seeds yet, but it did snow yesterday so it's not like I'm some horrible person for not starting soon enough. Besides, it's the desert. We will have growing weather until September!

Unless specified, all tutorials and projects are mine. Please feel free to use my tutorials for personal use only. All opinions are 100% mine. Please link back to my blog if you use any of my pictures or tutorials. Thank you!